painting, painting everywhere and not a drop of ink

Cousin Luke and I went back to the U-boat to do some painting this last Saturday, and woh Nelly how different does it look. It's almost inhabitable. Here's me doing some trim work *snort*. It was immediately evident that white paint reflects more light than 20 year-old tan.

Luke then went on to floor duty which was to be a light gray like you see on the porches of older houses. The front bedroom actually looks its ten by ten size, and you can see from this picture that it also looks one hell of a lot better than that old nasty green.

But before all the work started, there were two fun tasks that needed to happen in order to make the U-boat more man friendly. And since both Luke and I are ate-up retards, we chose to put a pulley and a cleat on the light pole and run up a pirate flag.

Not to let our lunacy end there, I mounted a fake periscope on the vent stack on the out house. Now, before you ask why the shitey-shack, remember that we are going to paint the u-boat sawfish and bull on the outside. I took an old broom handle and tapered an end and left a knob end on it. After painting it gun metal gray, I glued a mirror on it so that it will catch a few seldom-comers by surprise with a reflection of their headlights at night.

The backlight kind of sucks on this picture, but I'll take a sunny 80deg day over a terriffic photo.

Since I couldn't let a trip go without wetting a line, I went down to the dock with my 404 and proceeded to catch a HUGE log. But, alas, it got away with my lure. Such is life. Some times you win, some times you lose, some times it rains.

John, I am so ready to stay overnight and go fishing.

The cool thing is that the great baloon race (part of the Ky Derby festival) was going on as we were on the highway home. A neat end to a very productive day.

Not for the squeemish, and definitely not how I wanted to wake up

Yesterday morning I used a toothpick to clean the gookie out from under my toenails since I left my clippers and file at work. After the dredging ceased I thought threw the crusty bugger in the trash.

You know how it feels when you're about to enter REM? The peaceful sinking into the bed, every thing's right with the world, let me just slide my arm under my pillow like...OH SWEET MOTHER FUCKING GODDAMN MOTHER FUCK WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS THAT? SHIT, I'VE GOT A TOOTHPICK JAMMED UNDER MY FINGER NAIL! AHHHHHH! OH FUCKING SHIT THAT FUCKING HURTS!

Do you know what hurts more than getting one stuck an eighth-inch deep under your nail? Pulling the damned thing back out!

I don't understand this. While I was drinking and playing around bees, saws, an axe, and a sledge hammer- nothing. But I get hurt when I go to bed? Royally fuck that.

I got out of bed, put my finger on ice and had another beer down in the shop, where I knew I was safe.

smoke 'em if you got 'em

The bees are in, and will be checked in a couple of days.

Hopefully this time next year we'll be swimming in honey.

After getting them ready by smoking them and wetting them, Luke's fi'n to dump 'em in.


Brush 'em into the hive, put the lid on and wait a few days to see if the queen has been released from her own little box.

The grass in the opening is to keep others out and more of the bees inside building out comb instead of leaving to forage.

Neither one of us was stung, even though a LOT of the bees toward the middle didn't get enough water on them. It turns out that they really don't like being jostled around like you have to do to get the wet ball out of the box. There were several dozen buzzing like they were coming in on a bombing run, so he put the lid on the box, and then we went inside and had a beer.
An hour later they were all calm and going into the hive.

the yard will be abuzz

Our package of bees came in the mail yesterday and cousin Luke picked 'em up. When I went over to feed them the special bee food known as sugar water I took a few photos of the package.
Since blogger is experiencing technical difficulties with loading them, I offer you this:

mmmmm...fishing...

I went down to the cabin yesterday to get the floors ready for painting, and during breaks for beer and to un-beer I went down on the deck to fish.
Several nibbles but no real bites. Almost caught a snapping turtle to go ahead and get it out of the way for the season.

Anyway, the real story is that fucking assholes from Indiana like to drive 65 in a 70 zone FOR THIRTY MILES. Fuck Hoosiers, fuck their goddamn Fifo brethren and fuck the lady in the van in front of me that refused to relinquish the third and fastest lane to me because she apparently liked the formation flying in which she was engaged.

I'm now sufficiently pissed and want another beer.

good day fuck wads wherever you are.

These are so geeky cool

http://echosphere.net/star_trek_insp/star_trek_insp.html

cleaning out the man cave. hold on- that didn't sound right

I preparation for cleaning and painting, we have done some out tossing of old shit, like the idea that cousin Luke's son will ever get laid in the cabin.

Patio furniture and folding cots will be the replacements to old anything that can absorb water and harbor rodents and spiders

dry as a funeral drum

Deluge part dos didn't arrive, so my cousin Luke, my brother Darryl and I went down to the U-boat in Boston on Saturday for to haul away a bunch of junk in preparation for cleaning and painting. Fifteen beers later, the place was cleaned out and the truck loaded up.
We hadn't even finished unloading the truck in front of Bob's house(why have the trash in front of mine?) when a junk-scrounger pulled up for all the metal parts. He got the goods, we got the shit out of there, and things are going along well.
If my other brother Darryl doesn't need me for painting rooms in his new house, I'm going to see if I can head back down there this week for some more prep. Of course, that's only if it warms a bit.
I'll get pictures as it progresses.

Speaking of pictures, there's a familiar funny at the very bottom of the blog. Enjoy.

When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads

The rain is a pourin' down. I was going to take my lunch outside and watch the planes practice for the air show, but now I don't think that's gonna happen. Were I to stand outside now and look up for 15 minutes, the void where my brain should be would fill up with water and slosh around when I walk.

Trends being what they are, it has been historically the case that when we have good weather for Thunder over Lewavul, it'll rain on Derby Day, and vice versa, so I'll take my air show getting rained out.

Since Louisianna has horse racing, I'm sure the good doctor has been to a few races. And since Yankee and I drank a lot of beer at Churchill one Sunday I know he has, and I know damn well that Cousin Luke has, since I've lost money next to him on several occasions. For those wanting a refresher, here you are:

http://www.drf.com/flash/drf_pp_tutorial.html

The harder I handicap, it seems the worse I do.

It's the Lord, Noah

I will be building up the burm this evening, as we are to get muchos rainos this next four days. Who knows, maybe I'll start a paper boat regatta in the basement.

Is there prayer for sump-pumps?

The good news is that I'm looking forward to people drowning in the Ohio river this Saturday. Well, not looking forward to, but merely expecting.
Thunder over Louisville is this saturday, and that means a huge crowd on the waterfront to watch fireworks. Here's the catch- the city is not going to put up any sort of fence or barricade to keep people from the swollen river. The city expects people to use their best caution and exercise restraint.
Wa-wa-what? We wouldn't need traffic lights and stop signs if people were capable of that.

In other news:
http://www.derbypost.com/betting.html

and remember, no one ever wins out of the auxilliary gate. Isn't that right, John?

Don't worry, I've seen that finger before.

someone get me a snorkel

John, you're going to have fun with this one since you know the place.

Yesterday evening it began to drizzle. As it wore into night, the drizzle became rain. At midnight a thunderstorm parked its ass on top of us. I believe the meteorologist said we received an inch and a half of rain in three hours.

I heard the sump pump running in the basement, and I thought I'd check out how it looked, since I had earlier moved all the stuff out of the way that could get ruined. Holy mother of fuck what I saw- the water was coming in the basement door from AROUND THE SIDES AND FOUR INCHES UP THE DOOR.
Knowing full well that this meant there was seven inches of water at the base of the outside stairs, I thought I would be smart and snake out the drain from outside. I donned my yellow foulies and my water-proof boots and went out to do some work.
Did you know that wood ramps in the rain are slippery? Well, I picked myself and my now half-spilled beer up off the muddy yard and started down the steps. I got to the bottom step and put my foot out. Now, I've never been a math wizard, but I should have known that if my waterproofs go up my leg five inches, and I know that the water is seven inches deep, that would leave me with two inches of ice-fucking-cold water that would, without restraint or compunction, flood my boot faster than a submarine on an emergency dive. I immediately pulled my five pound boot out of the arctic sea, setting off a set of events that are funny now-if you're not me.
I wasn't expecting the extra weight on the quick-jerk reaction and put my arm out to steady myself on the edge of the step well. I was about three inches shy of where I needed to be, so instead of stopping, I found myself falling toward the concrete. "AH-HA!" I thought, "I'll spin around and my back will wind up against the door and I won't fall."
I was pretty sure my deficiencies ended with math and diplomacy, but what I didn't realize is that this decision would mean that I would have to sacrifice my smarter, drier foot.

Having successfully snaked the drain, I heard the rush of the water going through the pipe and then I heard the sump pump start. "Yeah. I have defeated Poseidon's angry hoards at my gate," I believed, failing to realize that he was sending gallons of reinforcements by air.

I looked up at the top step of the bumpy funnel that led to my now re-clogged ass drain and noticed something odd- the water was flowing down so fast from the yard that it wasn't following the normal, time-tested, step-to-step policy to flooding my basement. I instead witnessed a mini waterfall in all of its splendor.

Staying up until four in the AM is nice in college and all, but when you have to snake the drain about 2o times and build a dam out of bags of concrete and mud, not to mention dig a trench with camping maddok, fuck all of that.

While on campus today, I fell asleep sitting on the toilet. I don't know if any republicans came by and took pictures.